The “2009 High School Survey of Student Engagement,” conducted by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University, reveals that 66 percent of the students surveyed said they are bored at least on a daily basis in school, with 17 percent reporting that they are bored in every class. Two percent of the students said they are never bored in school, raising suspicions that they could be Russian spies. (Kidding about that last part.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, the factor students most frequently cited as the cause of their boredom was that the “material wasn’t interesting,” with “lack of relevance” of the material following not too far behind. Some 35 percent of the bored students, however, indicated that the source of their boredom was a lack of interaction with their teacher.